Retention

There is too much competition for your donors' attention and dollars to make fundraising a narcissistic exercise.

Dan Germain, vice president of business development at Small World Labs, tackled cultivation best practices, which certainly should be applied to any type of donor cultivation, whether the donors came in through a peer-to-peer campaign or not. Germain, who is both a presenter and planning committee member for Engage P2P, provided these "5 Steps for Effective Donor Cultivation":

Personal thank-you calls are a way to put board members to work, even if they're nervous about asking for money. No soliciting required; these are for stewardship only.

Knowing as much as possible about donors can help fundraisers keep them involved with the organization and develop greater retention. Nonprofits can break through the noise by utilizing traditional engagement methods, as well as emerging data and personalization tactics to focus on what matters — cultivating relationships with donors by addressing their interests and allowing them to communicate with your organization based on their preferences.

Peer-to-peer fundraising adds another difficult layer to the retention equation. Often, donors to peer-to-peer campaigns donate at the behest of a friend or family member. Oftentimes, they have little or no affinity for the organization itself — they simply donate to help someone they know raise money for a cause that person cares about.

It can be awful doing the work, even having actual meetings with major donors, and still not have the fundraising results you expect. Here are three tweaks I find help my coaching clients get back on track to reaching their fundraising goals.

You have no choice other than to report back to donors — not if you want to grow and not if you want to make your donors happy.

When we know how to reinforce donors' decisions to give and help them maintain the warm feeling of helping, everybody wins.

In the fundraising arena, the discipline of a handwritten note, each week and even better each day, goes far. Showing gratitude is a big part of what we need to do — must do — to be successful.

Fundraising really isn't about the money. It's really about an exchange of labor and values. And, it's about love.